"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (Oxford Mark Twain) - Hardcover

Twain, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195101316 ISBN 13: 9780195101317

Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc, 1996

Synopsis

Featuring 27 sketches the author wrote while living in California and Nevada, Mark Twain's first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, was published in May 1867, and has been out of print for well over a century. As Roy Blount Jr. observes in his introduction, "Jumping Frog is not just the seed from which the Mark Twain empire sprang, it is his most devilish and quicksilver book, the one that made the fewest concessions to the book-buying market of the day--the work of a man who had profited, artistically, from the company of roughnecks." In his Afterword, Richard Bucci notes that "Mark Twain rebelled against everything that was obscure in art, and everywhere sought to deepen and broaden his audience. His cause was not merely to deflate and criticize, but to create, in a new and democratic artistic language. The Jumping Frog book is only a small moment on his path to remaking American fiction, but it is the beginning moment--reason enough to justify the book's reappearance now, after one hundred twenty five years. Grand historical significance aside, however, not a few of the sketches in this book still sparkle with their original humor and insight into the human condition."

About this title

Synopsis:

Mark Twain's first book features 27 devilish and quicksilver sketches the author wrote while living in California and Nevada.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0195101316
• ISBN 13: 9780195101317
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 275